Silke Jasso
After visiting the National Museum of African American Culture and History in Washington, D.C., President Trump condemned a nationwide rash of antisemitic attacks that show no sign of slowing down.
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Since the start of the year, close to 100 bomb threats have been called in to community centers, retirement homes, and other Jewish organizations across the country. Dozens of synagogues have been vandalized; attacks often include broken windows and graffiti. Just yesterday, vandals desecrated dozens of headstones in a Jewish cemetery near St. Louis, Mo.
RELATED: Coordinated bomb threats are surging at these places around the country
But Trump, whose candidacy was supported by both the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party, has been relatively quiet on the attacks. The White House’s Holocaust Remembrance Day statement had no explicit mention of the attempted extermination of Jews, and Trump recently told a Jewish reporter who asked about the attacks at a press conference to “sit down.” The president also said he was the “least antisemitic person you’ll ever meet.”
Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and daughter Ivanka are Jewish. Ivanka Trump denounced the attacks yesterday, tweeting:
America is a nation built on the principle of religious tolerance. We must protect our houses of worship & religious centers. #JCC
— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) February 20, 2017
Trump finally spoke to NBC News Tuesday about the attacks:
“I think it’s terrible, I think it’s horrible, whether it’s antisemitism or racism, or anything you want to think about having to do with the divide, Antisemitism is just terrible, and you don’t know where it’s coming from but I certainly hope they catch the people. I think you maybe have had it for longer than people think […] Antisemitism is horrible and it’s going to stop, it has to stop.”
